


but a heart can't be helped

by blackwood (transjon)



Series: ace week jon ficlets [3]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Asexual Character, Crushes, F/M, Friendship, M/M, Puppy Love, SORT OF i think, ace subtype: sex averse but cant stop crushing on friends and coworkers, food as a love language, mentions of restrictive/bad eating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:35:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27234349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transjon/pseuds/blackwood
Summary: Jon has the sudden image of kissing Martin, then. Wonders if he’d become a story, too, one that he’d tell Tim, or Sasha. What would he say about him? About his mouth? About him eating his ice cream in bites? The way he’d asked one scoop of strawberry, one scoop of vanilla, and when he’d received two scoops of strawberry he hadn’t said anything?
Relationships: Basira Hussain/Jonathan Sims, Georgie Barker/Jonathan Sims, Jonathan Sims/Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, Melanie King/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Sasha James/Jonathan Sims, Tim Stoker/Jonathan Sims
Series: ace week jon ficlets [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1987108
Comments: 55
Kudos: 221





	but a heart can't be helped

**Author's Note:**

> title is from sellers of flowers by regina spektor!
> 
> brief cws, nothing major, but just in case,  
> \- brief/implied mentions of sex  
> \- jon is briefly worried about how his sex aversity is going to be taken  
> \- mentions of accidental meal skipping/bad eating 
> 
> i dont think georgie is a vegetarian in canon but i feel like at my uni apprx every person ive ever talked to either just went vegetarian or used to be one. idk if this is a new trend, but it just felt like a sort of uni thing to do? idk. this isnt a dunk on vegetarianism, im a vegetarian, i just think its funny.

Georgie has big brown eyes. Georgie talks with her hands, but only when she’s upset. Georgie sings while she cooks, and she cooks every day, and she shares her food with her friends.

“Can I sit?” she asks. She, even from a meter away, smells like sweet perfume. 

Jon, startled, scrambles to move his things away, into a big pile on the other side of the table, where leaves fall and gather from the tree that the table has been placed under. “Yes, yes,” he says, “please do.”

Georgie sits down next to him. “What are you doing?” she asks. She puts her backpack on the ground, and then unzips it, both hands disappearing inside. Her hair falls over her face in a veil. Jon watches her. Looks at the scrunchie on her wrist. Wonders about tying her hair back for her. She would let him, he knows – would hold still and wait for him to tell her she can move again before going anywhere. Would thank him, most likely. 

“Reading,” he says, and then sighs. “The same paragraph.” Sighs again. “For the past half hour.”

Georgie makes a sympathetic noise. “I know what that’s like.” She straightens up. “Here, I got you some noodles.”

She hands the container to Jon. Jon hurries to move his things further away to make room for the dish before grabbing it from her hands. When he does the first thing he notices is the _heat_.

“Oh,” he exhales. He has to stop his eyes from physically closing in pleasure. His stomach growls, and he’s suddenly horribly aware of how _hungry_ he is. “They’re still warm.”

Georgie, pleased with herself, hums. “Good. The sauce gets all lumpy and gross when it gets cold.”

She hands Jon a pair of disposable chopsticks, still in their paper sleeve. Jon thinks about her kitchen, then, fondly. The drawer next to the sink that’s full of Nando’s sauce packets and McDonald’s BBQ sauce cups. Disposable takeaway chopsticks she’s been hoarding since she moved to her uni flat, and all those unused plastic straws she stuffs into her bag whenever she decides to splurge on Starbucks. 

Her own dish, now open, has tofu in it. When Jon pries open the lid on his own, he realizes she’s put beef in his. 

“Georgie,” he says. Takes a deep breath in through his nose. “You didn’t have to –”

“I know,” she hurries to say. “I know! My flatmate was already cooking something with beef, and she had leftovers she was going to toss out, the _audacity_ , and I just asked if I could have them, and she said sure, so I just put half of the noodles in that frying pan and tossed them all together, not a big deal –”

Jon’s eyes well up with tears anyway. That Georgie would go out of her way to make something just for him. Something she couldn’t even eat. Just for him. Just because it’s something he likes. Nothing in it for her.

“Are you _crying_?” Georgie looks deeply embarrassed. “Jon –”

“Sorry,” he says. Hiccups. “Sorry, I think I’m just really hungry.”

Georgie’s gaze softens. She picks up a piece of tofu with her chopsticks, red and glossy with sauce. “The tofu is good, too,” she says. “If you want to try it.”

“Mm,” Jon says. He pops a few pieces of bean sprouts into his mouth. He has to fight himself to stop himself from moaning. He’s not sure if it’s really that good or if not eating lunch is just really catching up to him. “Yeah, sure.”

He turns to face Georgie. He expects for her to move away, make room for Jon’s chopsticks to reach into the container, but instead she’s sitting there, facing him, a cube of tofu between her chopsticks. “Open up,” she says.

Jon does. 

The moment is only a few seconds long, realistically – Georgie’s hand, steady and elegant, moves closer, one hand cupped under the chopsticks to catch the piece in case it falls, and then she carefully, carefully gets the piece in Jon’s mouth. He closes his teeth around it gently, with equal care. 

His face burns. He looks away. “It’s really good,” he says. Licks his lips. “What’s in the sauce?”

“I can teach you to make it,” she murmurs. When Jon looks at her she’s got her eyes half lidded, almost like a cat. Her pupils disappear into the dark circles of her irises. Jon blushes again, hard, the heat reaching all the way to the tips of his ears, and he watches as Georgie does, too. It’s more visible on her paler face. Maybe she doesn’t notice him blushing at all. He hopes she doesn’t.

“I’d like that,” Jon hurries to say. “Broaden my recipe horizons.”

“Mm,” Georgie hums. She sounds a little embarrassed, still, like she’s been caught in the act. Whatever the act is. “It’s a little selfish, though,” she says. “I was thinking some kind of a transaction would be fair.”

“Oh?” Jon says, curious. 

She smiles at him, conspiratorial, “teach me how to make that dessert you bring sometimes. You never tell me what’s in it. I can’t even look it up because you won’t tell me what it’s called.”

Jon smiles at her, eyes scrunching half closed as well. “My gran would kill me.”

She wouldn’t. His gran wouldn’t care, and in any case, even if the recipe was a secret and not something he’d figured out himself through experimentation and the rough memory of how she’d make it, the spices and the kneading of the dough, there’d be really no problem with telling her the name. It’s just that Georgie likes it so much. If she has to rely on him to make it there’s something she has to rely on his presence to get. Incentive of some sort. 

It’s the kind of selfish act he allows himself, just sometimes. Just every so often.

Georgie pulls away, mildly displeased. She stabs at her noodles. They make a squishy, wet sound. She grimaces, and whether it’s at the denial or the sound Jon doesn’t know. “Fine,” she says. “Bring some, then.”

“It’s a date,” he says before he can think it through. Blushes again. Georgie makes a little squeaking sound, and Jon worries for the briefest of moments whether he’s done something wrong, if he’s misread her, if he’s upset her, even, but Georgie looks away, and then at him, and then away again. 

“Yes,” she says. “It is.”

––

Tim has –

Tim has a friendly voice. Tim has grey streaks in his hair. Tim’s arms are effortlessly muscled, not from hours spent at the gym, from eating bland chicken breasts and protein powder, but from spending hours and hours outside. Rock climbing. Kayaking. A genuine desire to do things that just coincidentally require physical strength. Things that take him outside, and keep him outside. The sun bleaching his hair. His skin darker in the summers from the time spent outdoors, the vacations to France and Spain and Greece. His Facebook page full of photos of the hiking trails surrounded by orange trees. Jon scrolls down it, sometimes, just to see. Just out of curiosity.

“Have you ever been bungee jumping?” he asks one day. He’s got a bowl of takeaway quinoa and chicken salad. There’s kale and tahini dressing and cherry tomatoes and corn and cucumber, and other vegetables Jon hadn’t really paid that much attention to. There’d been a vegan version, too, with roasted chickpeas, and Jon’d watched Tim stand there on the customer side of the counter with a calculating look on his face for about a minute. 

“I’m trying to cut back on meat and dairy,” he’d said as an explanation, but he’d settled on the one with chicken anyway. “Not a fan of chickpeas,” he’d said when his order number was called. There’s been some bashfulness in his voice, something Jon’d heart had thudded in his chest over. Like he’d had to justify himself to Jon. Like Jon would judge him for his food choices.

So: 

Tim has a bowl of quinoa, and chicken, and kale, and cherry tomatoes. The kitchenette smells like citrus and sesame. Jon, trying to save money, has a curry-stained glass dish with leftover chicken teriyaki. It smells like honey and soy sauce. 

“Have you ever been bungee jumping?” he asks. He’s wearing a form fitting blue sweater. 

“Can’t say I have,” Jon says. He stabs a piece of broccoli with his plastic fork. 

“Would you want to go?” Tim asks. His fork is bamboo. It folds into two at the joint in the middle of the handle of it. It came in a travel case. He has two, one for the kitchenette, one to keep in his pocket. When they’d asked him if he needed any utensils or napkins after giving him the takeaway container he’d said no, and taken the little transparent travel case out of his pocket, and smiled, and said “got that covered!” 

He’d managed to not sound like an arsehole about it, somehow. Nothing holier than thou in his voice. 

So: the bamboo fork is green and blue and white. It’s small in his big hand. Jon has to look away so he doesn’t start staring.

“Hm,” he says noncommittally. “Haven’t put much thought into it.”

Tim chuckles. “Hey, Sasha,” he calls into the hallway. 

“Yes?” Sasha calls back.

Tim leans back in his chair. The legs scape against the floor. “Would you go bungee jumping with me and Jon?”

Sasha appears in the doorway. “Sure,” she says. “Assuming there’s a professional involved.”

“You wouldn’t let me throw you off a cliff?” Tim asks. “You really don’t trust me that much?”

Sasha looks at him, up and down. Settles on the tilt of his chair. “No,” she says, and smiles, and then she leaves the room again. 

“No faith in me,” Tim sighs, and then he turns to face Jon again. “It’s like she _tries_ to hurt my feelings. Would you?” 

“Would I what?” Jon asks. His throat feels dry suddenly. 

“Let me throw you off a cliff?”

“As long as there was a rope attached.” 

Tim starts laughing. “Sasha!”

Sasha appears in the doorway again. “I’m trying to get work done!”

“Not my fault you took your lunch break so early,” Tim tells her. “Jon would let me throw him off a cliff.”

Sasha glances at Jon, a small smile on her lips. “Your funeral,” she says. Disappears back into the hallway.

––

Sasha has curly hair and wire-rimmed glasses and she walks around like she knows where she’s going no matter where it is that she’s going. She’s taller than Jon. She wears cardigans over her white blouses. 

“It’s cold in here,” she says. “Can you believe that the artefact storage is warmer?”

“No,” Jon says honestly. “Is it really?”

Sasha flops on the sofa, chin in her hands. She takes a crisp out of the packet Jon’s offered to her, that she’d grabbed eagerly and taken with her to the sofa. “Yes. Would I lie to you?”

Jon pushes his reading glasses up over to his forehead, til they stay up, pin his curls back, and smiles. “Guess not.”

“Will you turn the heat on higher, then?” she asks. She bats her eyelashes playfully. Jon watches them flutter like a butterfly’s wings. He flushes, for no reason, his smile freezing on his face.

“I think Elias controls that,” he says, throat dry. He clears it pitifully. “I have a hoodie, if you’d like to borrow it?”

It sounds like a stupid idea as soon as he’s said it. His hoodie. That’s not normal, right? Lending out his hoodie to his coworkers? Even if they’re friends, too, sort of? 

“Sure,” she says, and then reaches towards him with both hands. “Hand it over, Sims.”

Jon scrambles to get up from his desk chair. It’s like he’s been burned, for a moment, like the plastic and the fabric have conspired against him and set themselves alight underneath him. “Yes, of course.”

It’s nothing much. Just something he keeps in one of the cupboards with some other personal effects – a change of clothes. An umbrella. Some cups. Caffeine pills he sourced from a friend. “Here,” he says. 

Sasha reaches for it with eager, fluttering fingers, and then presses it to her chest. 

“Ooh,” she says, delighted, “it’s _fluffy_ on the inside.” She takes off her cardigan quickly. There’s an embroidered cat on the collar of the blouse she’s wearing under the cardigan that he hadn’t noticed at first. It disappears underneath the charcoal grey of the hoodie. 

“Warm?” Jon asks anxiously. It’s oversized on him but it fits her perfectly. He almost tells her to just keep it. Wear it whenever. Take it home. Cut it into strips and turn it into scrunchies. Whatever she wants at all. 

He doesn’t say that. He doesn’t tell her. 

“Mmm,” Sasha hums. She unloops a hair tie from around her wrist and gathers her hair in her hands to put it in a ponytail. “It’ll do until Elias turns the heat up.”

Jon smiles weakly. “You might be putting too much faith in him.”

“I’ll poke him with my pitchfork until he does,” she says brightly. She stands up. Smooths down the fabric of the hoodie. “It smells like your cologne,” she says, equally brightly. “Neat.”

What is he supposed to say in response? He sputters, and flushes, and Sasha laughs, and Jon laughs as well, nervous and high pitched. “Thanks, Jon,” she says. “I owe you one.”

––

Martin smells like laundry detergent. The one that claims to be unscented, but still smells vaguely like clean cotton and the faintest hint of lilies. He supposes the lilies might be from something else. Maybe he has fresh lilies at home, on the counter, on his bedside table. On the coffee table, or the dining table, even. 

“Do you ever just think you’ve clicked with someone, but then you meet in person, and there’s just – nothing?” Martin asks. The ice cream sandwich, half in its wrapper still, is mint ice cream with a chocolate wafer. It’d been a chore for him to source them, but finally he’d found an ice cream shoppe that actually made them in house. He’s been bulk buying them since. Sometimes, at lunch, if they have the time they’ll go together after eating _real_ lunch. 

“Oh,” Jon says, and takes a little bite of his ball of ice cream. Martin watches him do it, and grimaces. Jon, front teeth still partly covered with ice cream, says “not really.”

Martin hums. “That happened to me this weekend.”

Jon gathers his knees mostly against his chest, uses his feet to move himself on the blanket to face Martin. 

“What?” Martin asks. His face goes all nervous and insecure. “Is there something on my face?”

“No,” Jon hurries to say, “no! No. Your face is fine. Just –” he blushes, “I don’t – sorry, sorry.” He thinks about asking if he should turn back around. Should he turn back around? To face the water feature instead?

“No, I’m sorry,” Martin says. He looks like a kicked puppy for a moment, but then his face, with some visible effort from him, settles into a look of steely determination. “I made it weird for no reason.”

Jon looks down, and then at his ice cream cone. Some of the ice cream is dripping down, threatening to land on his hand. “Anyway,” he says. Waves his free hand. He wonders if it’s socially acceptable to lick the dripping line of ice cream off the cone, or if Martin’s going to be displeased with him. “What happened this weekend?”

Martin sighs. Fidgets with his hands. “He came over, and we watched a movie, and then he left. We didn’t even talk. I was going to make dinner, but that didn’t happen either.”

Jon hums. The trickle of ice cream grows wider, gains speed. It’s going to catch his hand at this rate.

“Are you going to get that?” Martin asks. His eyes, too, are fixed on the melting ice cream.

“Oh! Yes,” Jon mumbles, and then he awkwardly tries to close his mouth around it in a way that isn’t disgusting or weird. There’s a faint smile on Martin’s face when he looks at him again. 

“You’re lucky that’s never happened to you,” Martin says. It feels almost like he’s digging for something, but Jon doesn’t know what exactly. 

“Well,” Jon says. He weighs the pros and the cons of sharing this piece of himself. On one hand, it might weird Martin out. Maybe it’s oversharing. Maybe it’s going to make him think Jon’s weird. Sometimes that happens. On the other hand, it’s Martin, and he’s never called him weird, or made him feel like he’s weird. 

“Usually,” he says carefully, looks at the grass, then the edge of the blanket. An ant is crawling up the tassels. “Usually people want things I don’t. On dating websites. If they don’t add it it’s usually implied.”

“Oh?” 

Jon fidgets. He regrets this, suddenly. “Ah,” he says. “They usually want to have sex.”

Martin hums, all understanding. “And you don’t?”

“No,” Jon says. He closes his mouth around the ice cream ball, teeth sinking into it anxiously. 

“Please stop doing that,” Martin mumbles. When Jon looks, he’s shuddering all over. Jon smiles at him, and Martin scowls back. 

“You like mint chocolate,” Jon points out. “You like ice cream sandwiches, for God’s sake. You have no room to talk.”

Martin takes a bite of his ice cream sandwich again. Jon watches as his eyes flutter closed as he does. Some part performance, Jon thinks, but it’s earnest enough.

“You’re just showing off,” he mutters. Fidgets with his hands. Takes another bite of his ice cream. “Was that too much information?” he asks.

Martin laughs. “I feel like every time we talk I share way too much. Jon, you’re fine. Last week I told you in detail about the bad mouth hygiene of that one guy I dated for like, a month.”

Jon smiles faintly. “True. I hope you know I flossed for ten minutes that night. And for the next three days after that.”

Martin laughs again. “That might be why you can take bites out of your ice cream,” he says. “All that flossing really pays off.”

Jon has the sudden image of kissing Martin, then. Wonders if he’d become a story, too, one that he’d tell Tim, or Sasha. What would he say about him? About his mouth? About him eating his ice cream in bites? The way he’d asked one scoop of strawberry, one scoop of vanilla, and when he’d received two scoops of strawberry he hadn’t said anything? 

“Yeah,” he says. “I guess it does.”

––

Melanie has eyes like fire. She’s short. She’s all concentrated. 

“You’re an asshole,” she tells him. 

“You’re one to speak,” he says mildly. When he looks up from his papers she’s smiling at him, just barely, eyes squinting the tiniest bit, anger and amusement bleeding into each other. 

“Look,” Jon says, finally, “I’m sorry.”

Melanie squints properly. “Wait,” she says. “Where’s Jon? What’d you do with him?”

Jon rolls his eyes. “You might have better luck with making me apologize if I was wrong more often.”

“Shut up,” she says. “God, you’re insufferable.”

“I just apologized,” he defends himself. “Don’t make me take it back.”

Melanie does a little motion with her hand, like she’s grabbing something. She puts the invisible thing into her pocket, and then claps her hands together, swipes them against each other. Jon watches them move. There’s no reason for it to happen but his own fingers twitch regardless, as if trying to grasp them. 

“There,” she says, pleased. “Can’t take it back anymore.”

“What,” Jon asks slowly, “if you got mugged?”

“Are you threatening me?” Melanie asks. Her tone is half delight, half incredulousness. 

“No,” Jon denies. “Just asking if you’re prepared for the possibility.”

Melanie’s face scrunches up, and then she reaches into the pocket again, mimes holding something between two fingers. Like it’s a pest of some kind. Roach or mouse or rat. She flicks her wrist, as if throwing it at Jon. Jon pretends to catch it, and then slips it in his own pocket. 

Melanie sticks out her tongue at him, and he laughs. 

It’s silly. It’s weird. This isn’t what they do. Jon almost wants to say it out loud. It almost feels like acknowledging it might be an olive branch, in a way – something to bond over, maybe. The offer to take her out for lunch is almost on his tongue before he remembers how bad of an idea that would be. 

Melanie is all concentrated. Melanie is halfway to being on fire at all times. Talking to her is like lighting a cigarette while pumping petrol. “Want to grab lunch?” he asks before he can stop himself. Curses silently. 

“No,” she says airily. “I’m going with Georgie in a bit. But,” she says before Jon has the chance to deflate, or ask her about Georgie, we can go tomorrow.”

“Fine,” he says. “Assuming we still like each other tomorrow.”

Melanie gives him a smile, then. “Who says I like you right now?” 

––

Basira has –

Basira has strong hands, and toned arms, and long, slender fingers. He Knows she used to play the piano. Basira thinks he’s funny, and he thinks she’s funny as well. Basira has dark eyes, and deep blue fingernails most days, and under her heavy jacket she wears clothes that are as beautiful as they are practical. She eats alone. Most days it’s cup ramen. Other days it’s stew. Other days, still, it’s curry. No rice. Just naan. 

“Do you want to get lunch?” he asks her one day. 

“With you?” she asks. She’s got little blue marks on her hands from her ball point pen. It’s one of the cheap ones that are scattered throughout the building, seemingly never ending. They bleed and leak and run out of ink at the worst possible times. Her crossword puzzle is half completed. 

“Well,” Jon says, “yes.”

“Guess that should be obvious,” Basira remarks dryly. Stretches her arms up behind her head. She yawns, wide, a little noise coming out of her open mouth. “Why not. Any preferences?” 

“What do you feel like?” he asks. His hands ball into little fists, then relax again. There’s something exciting about this. About lunch. About eating with someone. About –

Basira doesn’t have sharp teeth like Daisy does. Basira has blunt fingernails and if he catches her in the right lighting he can see that the eyeshadow she sometimes wears isn’t totally matte. 

“What a question,” she says. “Ooh. The choices are endless.” She stretches again, more deliberate this time. Her sleeves ride down her arms, expose her wrists, her silver watch. 

“Well,” Jon corrects her, “not quite.”

Basira smiles at him. “Right, right. Gotta get back here, all that. Although I wouldn’t say no to going on a walk to go somewhere. Maybe even take the bus. But,” she sighs, “if you’re not up to that, I guess we’ll stay close.”

Jon hums. “Well, there’s Indian, and Chinese, and, uh, I think a kebab place?” 

“I’ve seen them, Jon,” Basira says, but she smiles anyway. “Chinese, then?”

“Yeah,” Jon hurries to say, “yes, sounds good. Let me get my jacket,” he tells her, and Basira, placing her bookmark carefully between the pages of her thick magazine, smiles. 

“Hurry up,” she says. “Now I’m hungry, and if you don’t get back here fast I might leave without you.”

–

Daisy has long hair, and then an uneven, choppy bob, and then long hair again. There’s a period of time when it’s neither long nor a bob, in between, of course, but Jon doesn’t get to see that. Before the Unknowing her hair is short. When he finds her in the coffin it’s long. 

Her arms, after getting out, are weak. He doesn’t realize she can’t actually brush her hair on her own for a long time, but when he does, he could cry. 

“Stay still?” he asks. Daisy, on the cramped little sofa, stills instinctively. There’s some things that she’s allowing him to do, now. He touches the scar on his neck, also instinctively, and Daisy watches him do it, and a guilty look settles in her eyes. Goes away again. 

Daisy doesn’t ask him for forgiveness. Daisy doesn’t apologize. Daisy looks at him, at that scar, and then looks at his face, and then she smiles, wobbly but firm. Like saying it’s in the past. Like saying she did that but she won’t do anything else. Like saying if he doesn’t want to give her another chance that’s fine and she’s not going to ask for one but if he wants her around then she wants to be there. 

The hair brush glides through her hair easily enough. The tangles are mostly at the ends, some in the middle of the strands, but overall she’s managed reasonably well. Jon holds her hair near the roots, to make sure he doesn’t pull, and works through the loose hair.

He wonders if she would like to cut it short again, but hasn’t gotten around to it yet. He wonders if it feels comforting. The weight of it. He finds it comforting, at least. How soft it is. He doubts she uses conditioner. That she, if she can’t find the energy to brush it through, has the energy to both wash and condition it. 

He has the abrupt, absurd idea of conditioning it for her. Of standing behind her, or in front of her, carefully working it into her hair, mindful to keep the roots free of it. Maybe she would sit in the tub, or on a shower chair. Maybe she’d insist on standing. Of making it as hard for him as possible. Make him lift his arms to reach. 

It’s a ridiculous thought. She would never let him, and he would never ask. She would never ask him either. It doesn’t matter. He shakes his head, and then clears his throat. Daisy hums, questioning. 

“Have some crackers,” Jon tells her, half instruction, half question. It’s softer than what he was aiming for, and he blushes, embarrassed. Daisy doesn’t say anything, just reaches blindly into the packet, pulls one out daintily with two fingers. 

“Rye?” she asks. 

“Yes,” he confirms. It says so on the package. Maybe Daisy just wanted the chance to ask him directly. 

It doesn’t take very long, all in all. Maybe five minutes, at most, and then he’s sitting here, brush still in hand, just touching her hair, pretending to still be brushing it. 

“Taking long, there,” Daisy says. She takes another loud bite of her cracker. “You can braid it, if you’re that fascinated by it.”

“I’m not,” Jon mutters petulantly, but he gathers it in his hands anyway. Divides it into three parts. “But that might be a good idea. To keep it from tangling up again.”

Daisy hums, like she knows something he doesn’t. Jon, hands shaking, braids her soft hair, and when there’s only a few inches of hair left out he ties it all together with a rubber band. “You’re going to want to find a hair tie,” he says. “You should ask Melanie.”

“I don’t think Melanie likes me enough to lend me a hair tie,” Daisy says. 

“I’ll ask her,” Jon tells her. 

“I don’t think Melanie likes _you_ enough to lend you a hair tie.”

Jon scowls. She’s probably right. “She might,” he says anyway. 

Daisy turns to face him. There’s a hint of a smile on her face. “Okay, then,” she says, “go ask her.”

––

Martin’s hands are warm in his. They’re big, too. He no longer smells like lilies. Here, in the cottage, he smells more like eucalyptus and citrus. The bed smells like dust bunnies and mildew, but if he buries his face against Martin’s chest he can pretend it doesn’t smell like anything at all. That he’s just enveloped in a little cocoon of Martin. 

“I don’t,” he starts. Martin’s hand in his hair stills. He hums in question. 

“Yes?” he asks when Jon stops. “You don’t?”

“Have sex,” he says in a rush, and closes his eyes. He’s not sure why he’s nervous about this. Grown man, he berates himself. No way Martin’s going to be anything but lovely. No reason for this nonsense at all.

“I know…?” Martin says. He sounds so confused.

“Huh?” Jon asks, and then he remembers the tapes. “Oh, right. Melanie.”

“What?” Martin asks, confused. “Melanie?” 

Jon’s brows furrow. He lifts his head up. “Basira, then?”

“What? No,” Martin says. “You told me.”

“I did?”

Martin sits up a little bit. “Yes,” he says, like he’s offended that Jon’s forgotten. “When we used to eat lunch together, remember? You were eating your ice cream cone like,” Martin makes a face, “like an animal of some sort, and I was trying to flirt with you, and you told me you don’t meet people from the internet because they want to have sex and you don’t.”

“Oh,” Jon says. 

“You don’t remember?” Martin asks, like he can’t believe it. 

“You were flirting with me?”

Martin laughs. “ _That’s_ what you got out of that?”

Jon blushes. He nuzzles into Martin’s chest nose first again. “No,” he mumbles, petulantly. 

“Did you – were you _hoping_ I was flirting with you?”

“I don’t remember,” Jon lies. He remembers flossing furiously for four days in a row to prepare for the possibility of Martin kissing him and finding his mouth to be disgusting. He remembered counting blades of grass to keep himself from being the one to kiss Martin instead. 

Martin takes him by the shoulder, pushes him away to look at his face. Jon, stubborn, stretches out his neck to keep his face connected to Martin’s chest. “You definitely remember,” he says. “Jon. You were definitely hoping I was flirting with you.”

“Maybe,” Jon says, grouchy. “Is it fine, then?” 

“Yes,” Martin says, and smiles, and then chuckles. “Obviously it’s fine.”

“Cool,” Jon mumbles. “In that case,” he says, “we should make dinner. I’m hungry.”


End file.
